Best Books of 2017 -- the Cornwall List

I read a lot of books in the past year. Most of the books I read during the year are sent to me by publishers to be reviewed on this blog or elsewhere. All the books in the list below were published in 2017, and except for a few, were read in 2017. Most of the books on the list below were provided by the publisher, and to them I offer my thanks. I have been offering a Best Book List for several years. I started out with top ten lists, along with a Book of the Year Selection. In recent years I’ve found it difficult to limit the list to ten books, so you will find seventeen books. Two of them are named Best Book of 2017. The remaining fifteen are divided into four rather loose categories.  All seventeen books are excellent and worthy of reading. Links to reviews are provided (click on the title).

My Best Book of 2017 nod goes to:

Carol Howard Merritt, Healing Spiritual Wounds: Reconnecting with a Loving God After Experiencing a Hurtful Church, Harper One

Joshua Jipp, Saved by Faith and Hospitality, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Thanks goes to all seventeen authors! What great contributions to the faith conversation. Consider each of the books listed below, and add them all to your "to read" list if you haven't already.

Biography/History/Memoir

Volker Leppin, Martin Luther: A Late Medieval Life, Baker Academic

Jeremy L. Sabella, An American Conscience: The ReinholdNiebuhr Story, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Bible/Theology

Karl Barth, A Unique Time of God: Karl Barth’s World War I Sermons, Translated and Edited by William Klempa, Westminster John Knox Press

Alice Connor, Fierce: Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Violence, Mercy, Bravery, Wisdom, Sex, and Salvation, Fortress Press

Willie James Jennings, Acts (Belief: A Theological Commentary) Westminster John Knox Press

Amy Plantinga Pauw, Church in Ordinary Time:A Wisdom Ecclesiology, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Church/Ministry/Spirituality

Kathleeen Cahalan, The Stories We Live By: Finding God’sCalling All Around Us, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Mike Graves, Table Talk: Rethinking Communion and Community, Cascade Books

Kelley Nikondela, Adopted: The Sacrament of Belonging in aFractured World, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Craig Watts, Bowing Toward Babylon: The Nationalistic Subversion of Worship inAmerica, Cascade Books

Church/Culture/Justice

Richard Beck, Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise, Fortress Press

Melvin Bray, Better: Waking Up to Who We Could Be, Chalice Press

Michael Kinnamon, The Witness of Religion in an Age of Fear, Westminster John Knox Press

David Leong, Race and Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation, IVP Books

James Martin, SJ, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity, Harper One